The Avenging Angel

The movie is okay. It's not very accurate, but what do you expect from an old western staring Charlton Heston? Tom Berenger is good as a young member of the "Avenging Angels" learning about intrigue and scandal in his group. Kind of like Mission: Impossible, but in the West.

James Coburn is excellent as Orin Porter Rockwell, an interesting enough character, they could have made the whole movie about him.

Charlton Heston is Brigham Young....if you liked him as Moses, you'll like him here. If not, you won't.

The basic plot of the movie is based on inaccuracies and exaggerations. There may or may not have been a group of "Avenging Angels" in early Utah. Whether there was or not, the group was not an official Church unit and neither murder, nor blood atonement, has been enforced or used by the Church at large.

As long as you understand it's fictional, though, it's a decently interesting movie.

If you are not an over sensitive Mormon, trying to justify your religion, you will enjoy this movie. It's just what a Tom Berenger movie should be, filled with action and interesting characters. The story line is very unique and interesting.

If you like horses, Westerns, beautiful scenery & a story filled with intrigue, you should like this film. Co-produced by Tom Berenger (First Corp. Productions) he also stars in this exciting movie made for TNT television. Working along with famed Charlton Heston & James Coburn, Tom's in good company. He shoots, rides & roughs it nicely.

You may not be particularly interested in the trek of the Mormons to Utah in the 1870's but that's what begins the story. Miles Utley (Berenger) is trained form the time he's a youngin' to serve & protect the church's prophet, Brigham Young (Heston). And he does it with a vengeance! (How Bible-totin' people can sanction murder & politcal intrigue is a valid question but...To each his own.)

You have to feel for Berenger's character throughout this whole film. He's on the trail of potential murderers, dallies with Young's daughter in an attempt to get closer to the man he so violently protects, gets left for dead in the Salt Lake, found by one of the usurper's wives & nursed back to health, beginning a relationship with her in the process, rides all over Utah & finally meets up with the prophet himself who knows all along who's got it in for him. He knows Miles is sincere & never doubted his loyalty for a minute. All in all, it's an enjoyable film & will have you guessing & interested throughout. See it!

Note: Berenger's two young daughters get film credit here, too - Chelsea & Chloe Berenger.

First of all, it's been a while since I saw this movie. So, I may be wrong about this, but one of the other reviewers mentions the "trek of the Mormons to Utah in the 1870's...." By the 1870's the Transcontinental Railroad had been completed. Therefore, during this period of time the trek to Utah consisted of hopping on the next train and riding it to the territory. The trek portrayed in the movie actually took place around 30 years earlier.

My next criticism is that the "Avenging Angel" as portrayed in this movie never existed. They are loosely based on a group of renigade Mormons that existed for a short time while the Mormons were living Northern Missouri in the late 1830's. This group was more commonly known as the Danites. The Danites did commit crimes against both Mormons and Non-mormons of the area. However, the Church never sanctioned their activities. As a matter of fact, the first that the then Mormon prophet, Joseph Smith, had heard of the activities of the Danites was when the organization's leader and founder, Sampson Avard, gave perjurious testimony accusing Smith of having been complicit in their crimes. Avard gave this testimony in order to save his own neck. Once their activities became known, the Danites were disbanded and were never reconstituted.

Another inaccuracy is that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints never sanction murder. There were several times that various groups used violence against members of the church and the Church sanctioned violence used by the members to defend them selves, but only in their defense, only when the Church?s enemies we in the act of physically threatening the saints.

Finally, their is no evidence the Orin Porter Rockwell (Coburn's character) was ever a member of the Danites. He was a bodyguard to both Joseph Smith and Brigham Young (Heston's character). He was a gun fighter reputed to have killed more men than Wyett Earp, Doc Holladay, Batt Masterson, and Tom Horn combined. He was fiercely loyal to the Church and its leaders. However, he was never party to cold-blooded murder.

In short, I think that this movie would have been better if they had just used wholly fictitious characters and settings. The mixture of real people with an otherwise whole fictitious story only serves to perpetuate false ideas about the society that existed in 19th-century Utah.

There was an organization that existed in Utah after the Danites were disbanded. They were known as the Destroying Angels. The Mormons did kill people who were no threat to them in southern Utah. This was the Mountain Meadow Massacre on 11 September 1957. They killed over 100 men, women, and children on a wagon train from Arkansas. The only ones spared were children younger than 7. Even children as young as 9 were killed after the party was promised safe passage after turning over their weapons. Those left alive were given to Mormons in Utah to raise but eventually returned to their families back East. This was "The Crime of the Century" in the 1800's. There are some great books and many websites about it.